Tim Sparks' long journey to the 1993 National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship, and beyond, began modestly in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, when he started picking out tunes by ear on an old Stella flat top. He was given his first guitar when a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year, and the music he heard around him was traditional country blues, and the gospel his grandmother played on piano in a small church in the Blue Ridge mountains, so that's what he taught himself to play.

He found the time to revive his interest in the classics, adapting Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite to the guitar, a work that has been cited as a significant contribution to solo guitar literature. For Sparks it was a labor of love, which earned him the fingerstyle guitar championship in Winfield, Kansas. After attending the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts leading to a stint on the road with a Chicago-based rhythm and blues band, Sparks arrived in Minnesota, where he soon established himself as a journeyman guitarist and session player.

While recording three albums with the seminal vocal jazz ensemble Rio Nido, Sparks also became proficient in jazz styles from Brazilian to Be Bop, which brought him several regional music awards including Best Acoustic Guitarist, Best Latin Jazz guitarist, and Best Jazz Guitarist. Important models in this period were Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and fingerstylists Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert. Two Minnesota guitarists with whom he shared a lot of ideas and inspiration were National Fingerstyle Champ Pat Donohue and plectrum ace Dean Magraw.

It was at this time that he arranged Carla Bley's composition "Jesus Maria" for Leo Kottke.
“You can hear Tim Sparks think. He plays by choice not habit: ideas not licks. I've heard him do this on guitars so badly intonated, they wouldn't make a good ashtray; the same guitars - I remember a piece called Blues on Bartok Street - are guitars in Tim's hands. Beautiful. I'm Tim Sparks' biggest fan. His stuff is very difficult to play but it doesn't sound difficult. I think that's real musicianship. He's really one of the best musicians I know." - Leo Kottke

Phil Heywood is a fingerstyle guitarist with a bluesy swing and a bucketful of whatever it is that helps a performer turn an instrumental piece into an arresting lyrical narrative. His lucid playing encompasses the down-home rhythmic groove of a Mississippi John Hurt or Leadbelly, and the sheer fluidity and flair of Leo Kottke.

The internationally renowned Kottke, in fact, once handpicked Heywood to tour and perform duets with him. A soul-grabbing instrumentalist, Phil draws listeners in with his voice as well, singing in a warm, plainspoken style that blends smoothly with his rock-solid guitar work.

Heywood has been based in Minneapolis-St. Paul since the mid-eighties, performing locally and regionally while also establishing himself in the greater guitar and acoustic music world. He is the 1986 National Fingerpicking Champion, and the winner of the 1987 American Fingerstyle Guitar Festival Competition, an event judged by some of the top players in this field. In addition to his performances with Leo Kottke, Phil has played with Chet Atkins on NPR's A Prairie Home Companion, performed with fellow acoustic guitar luminaries Peter Lang, Pat Donohue, Tim Sparks, and Dakota Dave Hull, and opened shows for such artists as Norman Blake, Greg Brown, John Renbourn, Chris Smither, and John Hammond.

He has recorded five CDs: Some Summer Day (1990), Local Joe (1996), Circle Tour (2000), Banks of the River (2003), and You Got To Move (2008). What one inspired critic wrote of Local Joe applies equally to each of Phil's CDs: "Acoustic guitar fans should consider this recording a must have.... Heywood gives us all something to enjoy for a long time." (Music Reviews Quarterly)

Tim Sparks website • myspace

Phil Heywood website